2004 internet voting experiment expanded to 100,000

According to an
article from
Wired, a Pentagon program that provides online voting
in general elections will be increased from the pilot levels in 2000 of 86
users to over 100,000 voters in 2004.

The plan is to allow serving troops and ex-patriots to vote using a "secure"
system in the 2004 general election, but only if they meet certain criteria.
First, it is only open to users whose homes are in South Carolina or Hawaii or
in a handful of counties in Arkansas, Florida, Minnesota, North Carolina,
Ohio, Pennsylvania, Utah or Washington. Second, voters must use a computer
running Microsoft'sWindows operating system ("for security reasons").

Of course, the big issue is security, and there are significant concerns about
whether it can be maintained for such a significant endeavor, especially in
the light of the uproar over the 2000 election results, and the importance of
absentee ballots in same.

It will be an interesting experiment, and no-doubt controversial, much as it
already is with privacy groups, security groups, and voting groups all arguing
for and against the idea.